It’s been just over 2 months since I made my failed Kimchi mandu (김치만두). Do you remember that post? I learnt a lot of lessons that day. I read my chronicle on How to make “successful” mandu two times thoroughly just before I gave it a second try. My second time trying it turned out really well. I shared the work with my two sisters, so it made it a lot easier but I still spent half of my day on making these.

The main point of making good mandu is

• Squeezing dry the ingredients completely if it is possible.
• Spreading enough flour on the board where you roll the dough each time and the dish where you put the mandu, so it is easy to separate.

Unfortunately, I got a lot less mandu than last time. I used a similar amount of ingredients but I got half less mandu. I think hand made mandu needs more stuffing than the ones made with a mandu shaper (You need to fill them fairly well to make cute looking mandu for hand made ones, but if you add too much stuffing for mandu shaper ones, it won’t close properly).

Ingredients for 25 dumplings

-Dumpling skins

• All purpose white flour – 3 cups
• Warm water – 1 cup

-Dumpling stuffing

• Kimchi- 1⅔ cups
• 1/2 an onion
• Mung bean sprouts – 200 g
• Tofu – 275 g
• Minced pork – 130 g
• 1 egg
• Minced garlic – 1/2 tsp
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Sesame oil – 1 tsp
• Pepper – 3 sprinkles

Preparation (You can click the picture to see the bigger image)

1. Sieve the flour, add the water, then knead it (my sister kneaded it for nearly 30 minutes).
2. Finely chop the Kimchi, onion, tofu, and pork.
3. Par boil the green bean sprouts and chop them finely too.
4. Squeeze the bean sprouts, tofu, onion, meat, and Kimchi, separately in a straining cloth.
5. Mix all the squeezed ingredients in a big bowl and season it with the garlic, salt, sesame oil, and pepper.
6. Add the eggs and mix them well.

My sister worked so hard being a hand model for this recipe, especially squeezing all those ingredients. It is quite hard work if you want to do it properly. Thanks again Hyunji!

Steps

1. Spread some flour onto the board and plate.
2. Slice a dough piece off.
3. Roll the dough into round shapes, not too thin not too thick.
4. Put the rolled pastry on one hand and add filling on top (you need to fill it with an adequate amount of the stuffing to make a good looking mandu).
5. Seal the pastry then place it on a plate (You can seal it into whatever shape you want, I fold it in half then wrap the ends round to touch each other)
6. Repeat steps 1 to 5 until you use up all the ingredients.
7. Put some kind of cloth on a steamer and put the mandu on top.
8. Steam it for 5-10 minutes.
9. Serve it on a plate with dipping sauce (a mix of; soy sauce – 1 tbsp, sugar – 1/2 tsp, chili powder 1/4 tsp, a dash of vinegar and a dash of sesame oil).

I also made some mandu soup (만두국) with the rest of the mandu (the ones that I didn’t steam), but steamed mandu tasted better.

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My Failed Kimchi Dumplings (Kimchi Mandu in Korean) and What I have learnt

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Yesterday, I was reading a post from one of the prominent food blogs, the Traveler’s Lunch box. While I was reading it, it reminded me “again”, how hard it is to have a food blog, especially a recipe blog. Some hard things about having a food blog are (this is what he said) time, literary inspiration, and failed recipes, which all apply to me.

Cooking is indeed a time consuming job. This Kimchi mandu took me about 3 hours until I bit a piece. It was my first trial I remind you, still 3 hours is just too much. Don’t you think? The most stupid thing I did was that I had planned to make this meal on Monday, which is very hard for my and Michael’s body to cope because we weren’t ready to do such hard work at the beginning of the week. I was going to do all the work by myself, which would have killed me, though after making 2 mandu I asked him to help me.

The worst part of all was that the mandu wasn’t presentable for shooting. It tastes nice, but not the best, because the pastry was too thick (rolling the dough was Michael’s job by the way). Come on Mandu, we spent our whole dinner time (5:30 to 8:30) to make you, on “Monday”. I was so frustrated. I could only save 3 pieces of mandu out of 30 steamed ones. I had such great plans for this Kimchi mandu before I started. I was going to steam some, fry some, and make some mandu soup.

I wasn’t going to post any of the article related to the Kimchi mandu until I succeed, but it taught me some good lessons about how to make delicious mandu, efficiently. So I would like to share these with you as I know some people are very keen on cooking this dish right now. Here is the recipe and detailed ideas how it should work. (By the way, I added some pictures to show how I failed, so don’t follow the pictures exactly.)

Kimchi Mandu Ingredients

For mandu pastry (It will give you 30 pastries)

• White flour 3 cups
• Water 1 cup

For mandu filling (You can make about 45 mandu with this filling)

- How would I know this? When I was short of hand made pastries, I used left over pastries from my dumpling pizza recipe.

• Kimchi 400 g
• 1/2 an onion
• Green bean sprouts 150 g
• Tofu 140 g
• Minced pork 200 g
• 1 egg
• Minced garlic – 1/2 tsp
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Sesame oil – 1tsp
• Pepper – 3 sprinkles

Preparation

1. Sieve the flour, add the water, then knead. (The more you knead it, the yummier it gets)
2. Finely chop the Kimchi, onion, tofu, and pork.
3. Par boil the green bean sprouts and chop them finely too.
4. Squeeze the Kimchi, onion, sprouts, tofu, and meat separately. (It is the one of the hardest part. If you have a straining cloth, definitely use it. I didn’t have one so it was harder to squeeze with bare hands.)
5. Mix them in a big bowl (salad bowl), add the garlic, salt, sesame oil, pepper, and egg.

Steps

1. Knead the dough, cut it into pieces.
2. Roll the cut pieces. (into round shapes)
3. Put the rolled pastry on one hand and add filling on top. (I used a mandu shaper, but you can just do it with your hands.)
4. Seal the pastry then place it on a plate or clean table.
5. Repeat 1 to 4 until you use up all the ingredients.
6. Steam it.

How to make “successful” mandu

• Make mandu when you have a full day or at least a half day free to spare. (As I said it is a time consuming job, also there is a mess to clean up afterwards too)
• You will need a big open space. Some Koreans spread old news papers on the floor, and make mandu on the floor. It is easy to spread things, also easy to clean up later. (Flour will be everywhere.)
• When you make the dough, using warm water is better apparently. Also leave the dough at room temperature for about 1 hour, before you use it.
• Make an assembly line, and share the job. (You will need at least 3 people, one person to knead the dough, cut the dough, collect fragmented dough and hand out the cut dough to the rolling person, another person to roll the dough, and another person to make the mandu.) I bet kids will love to participate with the kneading.
• Before you start rolling the dough, spread flour on the board and the dish where you put the mandu. (Otherwise it is hard to separate the dough or mandu later.)
• When you roll the dough, make it thin but not to thin. (I know how you would feel about this. If it is thick, mandu wouldn’t taste nice, and if it is too thin, it will tear out.)
• You don’t need any fancy mandu shaper to wrap the filling. I bought a mandu shaper to make it easier, though once you steam it, it doesn’t look as good as hand made mandu.
• When you steam some mandu, lay the white cloth (straining cloth) underneath it, it is easier to take mandu out from a steamer that way. Otherwise it will loose its good shape.

This is a picture of mandu I sealed with my hands. (You can seal it into whatever shape you want, I fold it in half then wrap the ends round to touch each other)

How to enjoy “delicious” Mandu

• Eat it when it is still warm. It doesn’t taste as good when it gets cold.
• Serve it with some sauce (Mix of soy sauce – 1 tbsp, sugar – 1/2 tsp, chili powder 1/4 tsp, a dash of vinegar and sesame oil) and yellow pickled radish (Danmuji in Korean)
• You can enjoy mandu in different ways. You can steam it or fry it, also make some soup with it.

This is a picture of three mandu I saved.

How to keep the left over Mandu

I have some mandu left over. I intentionally left some to make some soup, which didn’t turn out well either, because I didn’t store them properly.

• Steam all the left over mandu, and cool them down completely. Then put them into a plastic bag, keep it in the freezer. (When you use them again, defrost it for 1 hour on room temperature.)

If you follow my “How To” series well, you won’t fail. By the way, I will try another one in 2-3 weeks.

Related Post

Steamed Kimchi Dumplings (Jjin Kimchi Mandu)

Dumpling Pastry Pizza (Mandupy Pizza in Korean)

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Ingredients for 12 sushi rolls (Big meal for 1 person, light snack for 2 people)

• Freshly steamed white rice for 1 person
• Tuna 250 g (drained of its oil)
• 1/4 an onion
• 3 crab sticks
• 1 cucumber
• Dashi (mix these together) – Vinegar 1 tbsp, Sugar 2 tsp, Salt 1 tsp, Refined rice wine 1 tsp
• Salad sauce – Mayonnaise 3 tbsp, Pepper 4 sprinkles, Salt 4 sprinkles

Preparation

1. Cool down the rice for about 10 minutes.

2. Finely chop the onion, tuna, and crab sticks.

3. Put them into a bowl.

4. Add the salad sauce and mix it well.

5. Peel the cucumber skin off then thin slice the flesh with a peeler carefully. (Thickness about 0.2 cm)

6. Boil the dashi on the pan for 15 to 20 seconds.

7. Pour half of the dashi on the rice and mix it well. (You can add it more as needed.)

Making

1. Wet your hands in cold water then work rice (12 dough ball of rice).

2. Wrap the rice with cucumber.

3. Put the tuna salad on the rice.
4. Serve the sushi rolls on the plate.

Tips

1. When rice seem to stick on your hand, use cold water. (have a bowl of cold water next to you.)
2. The height of rice’s dough ball should be shallower than the sliced cucumber’s height. (to hold the tuna salad topping)

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Tips to Eat : Use your fingers instead of a knife and fork, it is faster and less fiddly that way. But it can be a bit messy around your mouth.

Ingredients for 2 people

• Chicken wings 500g
• Milk 5 tbsp
• Salt 3 sprinkles
• Pepper 3 sprinkles
• Rosemary 1 tsp

Marinating Sauce (Mix them together)

• Soy sauce 1 tsp
• Chili Powder 1 tsp
• Gochujang 1 tsp
• Hot sauce 2 tsp
• Garlic 1/2 tsp
• Honey 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce 1 tsp
• Refined rice wine 1 tsp

Preparation

1. Rinse the chicken in cold water, add the salt, pepper, rosemary and milk onto the chicken. Mix them well.
2. Leave it in the fridge for about 20 minutes. Mix it regularly (Every 5 minutes).
3. Drain the milk.
4. Put the chicken onto the plate.
5. Paste the marinating sauce on the wings. Leave it for about 10 minutes.
6. Put the wings onto the oven tray.

Cooking (with mini oven)

1. Set the temperature on 240 ˚ C for 10 minutes. Bake it.

2. When it beeps, turn them over, then set the temperature on 210 ˚ C for 15 minutes and bake again.

3. Serve them on the plate. (Red sauce on the picture is hot sauce. You don’t really need sauce, it is just there for the picture.

I couldn’t fit all the wings on the oven tray, so I cooked some in the frying pan.

I liked oven cooked wings better. It was more crispy and tender.

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Cucumber Canape’

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However its more popular name is “Mussammari” which means vegetables wrapped with pickled radish.
It seemed to be really popular as a house warming day food. Although I didn’t have a house warming party or anything like that, I wanted to try some by myself too. Because most Koreans seemed to love this meal and tasted it at least once in their life time, but I hadn’t.

As you can see, by the picture below, it looks very pretty, but also takes some effort. I think it can be a really good appetizer.

Ingredients (It was enough for 3 people)

• Thin sliced radish pickle 1 pack
• 1/3 a capsicum (I used yellow one)
• 1/4 a medium size carrot
• 2 crab sticks
• 1/5 block of ham from 160g
• Radish sprouts
• 2 shiitake mushrooms
• Garlic chives or drop wort for string

For dipping sauce (Mix them together in a bowl.)

• Mustard 1/2 tsp
• Vinegar 1/2 tsp
• Sugar 1/2 tsp
• Water 1/2 tsp

Preparation

-Thin slice all the ingredients except the radish.

Cooking

1. Boil some water in a pot.
2. Add some salt.
3. When the water starts to boil, parboil the garlic chives.
4. Pan fry these separately – capsicum, carrot, mushrooms, and ham, in a frying pan without oil.

Making the Wraps

1. Place the radish on your left hand.
2. Put a little bit of each of the vegetables, ham and crab, onto the radish.
3. Fold it. Tie it with the garlic chive. Repeat until you use up the ingredients.
4. Serve them on a plate with dipping sauce.

The dipping sauce is made with mustard, so it can be spicy like some sushi. But I really love it. Anyhow you need to be a bit careful not to dip the rolls into the dipping sauce too much.

By the way, I had Dakgalbi as a main dish. It was really good, as if I had it in a restaurant.
You can get the Dakgalbi recipe from my blog as well if you want.

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